Out Of Order
by On-A-Dare
Summary: Every story has a beginning, a middle and an end. It's meant to be the end for River Song, until Clint Barton decides to go against orders in the middle of his mission to eliminate her. What begins is a vast and complicated and ridiculous new world for an agent, an archer, and an assassin.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** During a misspent week in September 2012 I mainlined the _Avengers_ and _Doctor Who_ until my brain managed to superimpose River Song and Natasha Romanoff and fuse them into one character. Then she started dictating. Before I knew it, Clint Barton and Phil Coulson had elbowed their way in. That's how this AU 'verse came to be. It's involved some tweaked timelines, altered plot points, a ton of original back story for River, and a lot of fun on my part. I'm having a ball playing in Marvel's and Moffat's sandboxes (and making no money).

**Spoiler Note:** This series contains spoilers of a vague, AU sort for _A Good Man Goes To War_ and _Let's Kill Hitler_.

**Author's Note:** I cannot give enough kudos to **like-a-raven-14** who not only did not laugh at me for having this idea, but who is an incredible beta and is largely the reason why this fic (and those that follow it) are in readable shape.

**Part 1: The Marvelous Tale of an Agent, an Archer, and an Assassin**

**Chapter 1**

_September 2005_

Sometimes River Song felt as if she'd been running her whole life.

On a deep, poetic, metaphorical level, that might very well be true. On a more concrete one, it had definitely been true of the last six months, ever since her working relationship with Julian Monroe, an up-and-coming crime boss operating out of Venice, had gone south. He had hired her to kill his main rival, and once the job was done, he'd promptly gotten an over-inflated sense of his own importance and influence. He'd thought she should come to work on his payroll permanently.

And like most men of his stripe, he didn't take rejection well. In fact, he seemed determined to take it as a personal insult.

River was making her way through a maze of narrow back streets and alleys. The city of Sofia had some beautiful spots. This part of town was not one of them. It might even, River conceded, be one of the ugliest locales in all of Bulgaria. Rows upon rows of middling-sized buildings made of weathered cinderblock and wood that had long since shed most of its paint. Lamps with covers so old and dirty that what light they gave off was dull and orange.

Off to her right, River could hear the thump of music from the clubs that lined the main thoroughfare. Her meeting point was just another few blocks ahead. The jump drive that she was delivering to her client was zipped securely into an inner pocket of her jacket.

Her gun was holstered within easy reach, just in case she ran into trouble again.

River frowned. She was going to have to swing back by Italy and kill Monroe. His people had shown up on her trail four times now, not counting the other two times she'd only left town a step ahead of them. She was looking over her shoulder a lot more than she cared to these days. She had been moving with increasing frequency, catching sleep in snatches and meals on the fly. River could physically feel the strain of keeping her guard up wearing on her.

Correction: First she was going to beat the shit out of Monroe and make him tell her how he had been tracking her down. The man was not exactly a criminal mastermind. There had to be some trick to what he was doing.

Then she'd kill him.

Monroe should have known better than to try to push her into being his flunky. River's _modus operandi_ wasn't exactly a secret in the circles in which they ran. She worked alone, owing no fealty and accepting no protection. Monroe had assumed that that gave him an advantage over her. River knew what Monroe—and everyone else, for that matter—saw when they looked at her: a very young, very pretty, physically unimposing woman. River was more than capable of using that image to her advantage, but it could get irksome when people tried to turn it around on her.

Those people tended to find out, fairly quickly, that appearances could be deceiving. If River Song could be summed up in a word, it was _deadly_. The Reaper, they called her. She'd picked that nickname up two years ago after a particularly bloody day in Belfast.

There really was nothing like being good at your job, now was there?

River found herself coming out into a wider, square area where two alleys intersected, a crossroads of sorts between the corners of four buildings. Her feet slowed almost of their own accord, and River drifted to a stop for a moment, leaning her left shoulder heavily against a wall. Hunched over slightly, lips compressed in a tight line, her hand came up to press against her right side. The throbbing was getting worse, and she imagined she could feel heat radiating through her shirt.

The last merry band that Monroe had sent after her had caught up with her two nights ago. Four men, three of whom she'd left dead in an alley much like this one. But they'd gotten a few hits in. River hadn't even registered the worst one until she'd been halfway back to her bolt hole.

A knife had opened up a long cut along her side, just under her ribs. It had gouged fairly deep toward the back, needing stitches, which she had awkwardly done herself. She'd never reached dangerous levels of blood loss, but even though she'd thought she'd disinfected it well enough, after a day the wound had started to turn red and angry and swollen. Fatigue and chills had settled into her bones, and the increasing ache in her joints and behind her eyes told her that she was working up a nasty infection. What over-the-counter meds she'd been able to lay her hands on weren't touching the low grade fever she'd been running. River didn't want to think about what sort of toxic crap might have been on that blade.

She really didn't have time to think about it right now, either.

River took a deep breath and straightened up again. She just had to finish this job, deliver the jump drive, and then she could leave town. She would never have stayed here so long except that her client had had to delay the pickup date. There was a doctor three hours away who was trustworthy and who owed her a favor. She could get patched up there.

River started across the dingy square, eyes and ears alert for any potential danger that might be lurking in the alleys off to either side. She'd been taking extreme care to make sure more of Monroe's men weren't following her tonight.

That was her mistake, she'd tell herself later. She'd only been watching out for known threats on the ground. It never occurred to her that a new player might be following her from above.

At least not until she was almost on the other side of the square and an arrow flew across her path and buried itself in the side of the building, right in front of her.

**Xxxxxxxxxxx**

Hawkeye was shadowing his target from the rooftops.

In six years with SHIELD, Barton had eliminated any number of dangerous people. Ordinarily, it was a simple enough matter. Not necessarily easy, but simple. Acquire the target. Shadow the target to learn his—or her—routine. Pick the most effective position. Triangulate. Account for wind and weather.

Then build his nest and wait for the target to wander into his sights.

Of course, it wasn't always quite so straightforward. With SHIELD missions, there was always a certain level of the unexpected and unforeseen that he had to brace for, but the basic structure was always the same.

This one, though? She'd been keeping him on his toes.

He'd gotten eyes on the Reaper several times since arriving in Sofia. She seemed to be working the cover of a college girl doing the Starving Student European Tour. Jeans and t-shirts, hair pulled back in a ponytail, carrying a backpack wherever she went. Completely harmless and unassuming.

He knew better, of course. He'd read the file.

Though River Song had been sticking to the same general area of the city, in almost a week he hadn't been able to identify a specific safe house. Her routine was decidedly not routine, and she had to be operating on the bare minimum of sleep.

She was unpredictable.

He'd be lying if he claimed that he didn't find that interesting.

**xxxxxxxxxxx**

_One week ago…_

Clint Barton had been called on missions on short notice before. That was just a part of working for SHIELD, being able to mobilize at any given moment. But this was the first time that he hadn't seen the mission brief until he boarded the jet.

Acting on short notice was one thing. Going into a dangerous situation potentially unprepared was something else. There were pre-mission protocols to be followed, especially with Phil Coulson as a handler.

At the beginning of his SHIELD career, Clint had chaffed at those protocols and Coulson's generally strict adherence to them. But it hadn't taken him too long to realize that Coulson's fondness for going by the book had nothing to do with a rules-and-regs fetish. He stuck to them because he felt it gave him improved odds of bringing his agents home in one piece.

And given that, ever since Clint had been brought into the SHIELD fold at the age of nineteen, Coulson had progressed from being his recruiter to his handler to his friend to the closest thing he had to a brother these days, bringing each other home in one piece was something they took pretty damn seriously.

So, when Clint's cell phone had gone off at one o'clock in the morning, and he had answered it to be greeted by a uncharacteristically harried-sounding Coulson saying, "Clint, pack your gear and meet me at Hanger 2. We're in the air in half an hour," there had been no question but that something big was going down.

He grabbed his go bag from the closet and threw in a sidearm and a favorite knife. He packed his bow and quiver in one case and his sniper rifle in another and taken off for the hanger at a jog before he'd even really processed that he had no idea where they were going.

When Clint reached the jet, Coulson had been overseeing the ground crew and making sure all the gear was properly stowed. Clint, staying out of the way, had packed his own stuff away and taken his usual seat on the jet. The crew was efficient, and in a span of minutes, Coulson was dropping into the seat across from him and strapping in while the pilot and copilot finished up their pre-flight checks.

"So, whatever it is, I take it it's bad?" Clint asked, buckling himself in.

Coulson gave him a rueful smile.

"Aren't you the one who always advocates for shorter briefings?"

Clint returned the smile, but it was not without a hint of trepidation that only his handler would be able to read.

"Seriously, Phil."

Coulson reached down into the briefcase by his seat and pulled out a pair of files.

"The Council has a lead on the Reaper."

Clint's "_Holy shit_" was lost in the roar of the jet's engines as they took off.

The Reaper had been on SHIELD's radar for about two years now, ever since she had walked into the headquarters of an arms dealer in Northern Ireland and walked out again leaving two dozen dead men and a flaming building in her wake. Clint had never seen the file, but word got around in the intelligence community. He always kept his ears out for an interesting rumor, and the rumor on this woman was that she was deadly, inventive, and could vanish like a ghost.

She might have remained just another name on SHIELD's watch list of potential threats. But then, eight months ago, Nairobi had happened.

If there was one thing that was sure to bump you up onto the kill list, Clint thought cynically, it was making the World Security Council look stupid. Like allowing one of your most wanted threats to waltz right into a facility protected by SHIELD and sabotage a massive research project, eliminating the lead scientist and destroying all the data.

While killing two SHIELD agents and putting five more in the hospital.

Nairobi had turned out to be not only the upping of the ante, but the break that SHIELD had needed. One of the casualties, Agent Kessler, had gotten an up close and personal look at the Reaper, finally giving them a face to put with the name.

But while, admittedly, the Reaper wasn't the biggest fish to ever cross onto SHIELD's radar, she was one of the most elusive. Trying to pin her down had apparently had the analysts pulling their hair out for months now.

"Where did she turn up?" Clint asked as he started to thumb his way through his copy of the file.

"We have it on good authority that she arrived in Sofia yesterday," Coulson replied.

"We're taking her out?"

"With extreme prejudice," Coulson confirmed. "The Council wants a message sent, apparently."

Bow, then. Clint nodded, even as his eyes scanned the information in the file. For all the resources that had been put into it, it was pretty thin.

"The Reaper. AKA…River Song?" Clint rolled his eyes up to look at Coulson.

"More than likely just another alias," Coulson said. "But it's the best they've got."

Clint read on. River Song. Age, unknown. Affiliations, unknown. Nationality, unknown, though best intelligence seemed to be that she was English. Covert operative. Killer for hire. Skilled in hand-to-hand combat, gifted with languages. Highly intelligent and highly dangerous. All indications were that she was a strict loner, and a psychologist in Oslo who had made a hobby of studying her was apparently convinced that she met the definition of a psychopath. He was of the opinion that she was, and likely had been, a danger to the general population beyond the targets she killed.

"Not a lot of specifics," Clint commented. Coulson grunted in reply, reading his own file.

There was a list of incidents that she was known or suspected to have had a hand in, going back to early 2003. At the very back of the file were the newest and most important additions.

Pictures.

The first had been taken from the security feed from the Nairobi facility and had been positively identified by Agent Kessler. With that picture to go on, it looked as if the analysts had been working overtime trying to find matches. They'd scared up another one from Nairobi, taken a few days before her attack on the base. This one was also from a security feed, from the local train station. It was much sharper than the one from the base footage, but clearly showed the same woman.

They'd found others, as well. There was a picture from a state ball in Vienna, in which she was wearing a flowing gown and was on the arm of a state official who had to be three times her age. There another of a woman in a business suit in the lobby of an office building in San Francisco. She looked older in both of these pictures than she did in the one from the train station, but Clint eventually decided that this was a product of dress, make-up, and carriage more than anything else. There was a blurry picture from Belfast, two years ago of a disheveled young woman standing with other shell-shocked onlookers outside of the building she'd destroyed.

The final picture was the oldest, and clearly showed a considerably younger River Song in a school uniform in a crowd of other kids. It looked as if they were milling around in some sort of museum. The accompanying notation said that it had been taken in Edinburgh. It was over four years old, taken in April of 2001. Clint wondered how the hell SHIELD had managed to lay hands on it.

Clint flipped back to the photo from the train station and studied it, memorizing the face. He was going to be hunting her in a matter of hours.

The woman in the picture couldn't have been more than twenty or twenty-one. She had a soft oval face, delicately drawn features and finely arched eyebrows. Her eyes were brown, and even in a flat photograph looked alert and watchful. She had light brown hair, the sort that tended to darken in the winter and streak with gold in the summer. She was the sort of woman who could either fade into the background or stand out among hundreds depending on what suited her in the moment.

Idly, he flipped back to the one from London. Here, she just looked like a kid among other kids. She was even smiling at something the girl next to her was saying. Clint held the photo up.

"How old would you say she is, here?" he asked. "Fourteen? Fifteen?"

"Hard to say," Coulson replied. "If not that young, then definitely young enough to pass."

Clint shook his head.

"She has to be working for someone, right?"

Even if she was older than she looked, she wasn't that old, and she'd been in the business for at least a couple of years. There were definitely agencies and organizations out there that used kids, but kids didn't work on their own.

"You'd think so, but no. Not that we're aware of," Coulson said. "Even if she did at one point, general consensus is that she's now completely freelance. The Council doesn't really consider it relevant either way. They just want her neutralized. And given how dangerous she's proven to be up close, it calls for a distance kill."

Clint nodded. That was where he came in.

"She's been sighted in the Lion's Bridge area?"

"Yes," Coulson confirmed. "The safe house is being set up in the northeastern corner of the sector. It'll be ready by the time we land."

"Perfect." That location would make it easy to scout out the area from the rooftops.

New York to Bulgaria was a long trip. That was more than enough time to start roughing out a plan.

**xxxxxxxxxxx**

Five nights later, he saw the Reaper in action.

Clint actually had her lined up in his sights, clear to take a shot, when the men appeared, giving him pause. He could take her out in a crowd, of course, and be away back over the roofs to the safe house before anyone on the ground had processed what happened.

But instead he waited. They weren't pressed for time, the Reaper showed no immediate indications of leaving town, and it was always best to have as few loose ends as possible.

The men might as well have had "organized crime thugs" tattooed on their faces. He watched them close in on River Song with predatory grins that, for some reason, made his hand clench around his bow. He watched her take down three of the four with nothing but her bare hands, and couldn't help a low whistle at the sight.

"_What is it, Hawkeye?"_ Coulson asked through the comm.

"Reaper's hand-to-hand skills confirmed," he replied.

"_Not on you, I hope,"_ Coulson said dryly.

"Nope. Looks like some old friends caught up with her here."

"_Did she kill them?"_

"Without breaking a sweat."

"_Well, pull back,"_ Coulson said. _"We want this as clean as possible. You can pick her up again tomorrow."_

"Copy, Aerie. See you back at base."

Clint didn't withdraw immediately, though. There was still one man left, even if calling him a man was something of an exaggeration. Clearly a new recruit, the gangly teen had acne-scarred cheeks and his eyes were wide and fearful as he took in what the Reaper had done to his cohorts. The gun he had trained on her trembled violently in his hands.

She snatched it away from him with no resistance whatsoever.

Clint expected her to turn it on the boy and make a clean sweep of it. Instead, she stepped closer, grabbed him by the front of his shirt, and gave him a rough shake. She said something to him, but Clint was too far away to hear what it was. Then she shoved him away so hard that he fell over. The boy scrambled to his feet, turned and fled. The Reaper watched him go, then tucked the gun into the back of her jeans and disappeared into the shadows.

_Huh_, Clint thought. _How about that?_

Now? Two days later? Now she wasn't looking so good.

Clint had been keeping pace with the Reaper as she navigated through the alleys three stories below him. She started to slow down as they came to a place where a pair of alleys converged, crossing each other. Clint took the opportunity to pick up speed and jump across the alley ahead of him, landing lightly on the roof of the next building. From here he could get a better head-on shot.

He watched her stop, coming to rest against a wall, one hand pressed to her side.

He knew he should go ahead and take the shot. He'd never have a better opening. She was right in his sights. There was no one else around. And besides, he'd scouted out the area ahead of time.

He knew what was waiting up ahead for her.

A second gang, cronies of the ones she'd killed two nights ago, he'd bet, had set up a kill box. Ms. Song was very popular this week, it seemed.

Clint supposed the smart thing to do, strategically speaking, would be to let her just walk into the trap. The Reaper would die, and SHIELD would have no exposure at all. The Council would probably be pissed at being cheated out of their opportunity to send a message, though. Besides, the kill that the thugs would deal out was likely to be a lot less clean than his would be.

Coulson had once remarked that, for a highly skilled professional assassin, Clint could be very soft-hearted. It hadn't been meant as a criticism—more as an affirmation that Clint had landed on the right side, fighting with the good guys.

Clint knew that it wasn't soft-heartedness that made him do what he did. He knew that evil and danger came in many packages, including pretty young women, and sometimes that danger had to be eliminated. Sometimes he had been the one who had been called upon to do it, and he'd carried out his orders.

He couldn't say what it was, exactly, that made him hesitate when it came to the Reaper. Too many unanswered questions, maybe. There were some uncomfortably wide gaps between the sketch of the mercenary-for-hire he'd read up on and the woman he'd been watching for the last week. Or it could be the fact that no one ended up in this life entirely by choice.

Clint watched the Reaper straighten up, clench her jaw, and start walking again, across the open square below. If he had to boil it down to one word, the best that he could come up with was "recognition." Seeing something familiar in a person that he'd never met before.

He took careful aim and fired. The arrow cut downward, flew two feet in front of her, and buried itself near the base of the wall of the building next door, stopping her before she could head up that alley to what was sure to be a very ugly death.

**xxxxxxxxxxx**

River stood, frozen, staring at the arrow.

It was one of life's funny truths that the world of covert operations, shadowy assassins, and underground organizations could be an incredibly gossipy place. River had heard stories about "Hawkeye," an assassin who favored a bow and arrow, who struck from above, was never seen and who cut down his targets with unerring accuracy.

She had scoffed at the stories at first, mostly because of the man's choice of weapon. But when she had really stopped to think about it, her derision had dried up. An arrow might appear antiquated, but it had certain tactical advantages. Arrows were quick and they were quiet. Plus, an arrow was memorable in the way that a bullet wasn't. It was the kind of kill that would inspire fear.

That was half of what this job was. Inspiring fear.

River sure as hell felt afraid now.

There was no other movement or sound in the square that she could detect. No follow-up shot. River knew she could try to run, but how far could she really expect to get before being hit? Instead, very deliberately, River let her backpack slide down her arms and tossed it off to the side. She drew her gun, walked back to the center of the dingy square, and started scanning the dark rooftops.

By all accounts she'd heard, Hawkeye was from the other side of the pond, either American or Canadian. So she addressed the shadows above her in English.

"I know you're there," she said, raising her voice. "And I'm in no mood for games. Show yourself."

She was met with silence. River felt a coil of anger rise up into her throat.

"Did you hear me? Either take your shot, come out and fight, or leave!"

This time she heard boots land lightly on the ground off to her right. River turned her gun on the figure that stepped out into the dull light.

"Option B, then," she said.

The man had a quiver of arrows on his back, but beyond that, Hawkeye looking nothing like what she'd expected. She would have guessed him to be in his mid-twenties, but his was a rather hard face to judge. There were already some lines weathered into it, but he had the snubbed sort of features that would make him seem younger than his actual age for decades to come, probably. He looked strong, but was not overly tall. His hair was short, and a nondescript brown. His only remarkable feature was a pair of green eyes.

They were a little too keen and observant for comfort, River thought. It didn't help that he was looking at her as if he might be capable of seeing parts of her that she kept carefully hidden away.

She told herself not to be so damned fanciful, but what he did next did nothing to help her equilibrium.

"River Song?" He walked toward her, empty hands raised slightly. "I just want to talk to you."

**xxxxxxxxxxx**

Coulson was going to kill him for this. Good and slow, and probably in a very inventive way.

People who didn't know Coulson well took the man for a mild-mannered government paper-pusher. Those people were idiots. One of the first things Clint had learned about his handler was that the senior agent could kick the ass of anyone in SHIELD, up to and including Clint's own.

Which was exactly what he was going to do when he found out about what Clint was doing.

Okay, so Coulson probably wouldn't kill him, but he really wasn't going to be happy about this. He had sounded agitated enough when Clint had told him he was going comm dark, right before he had quickly collapsed and packed away his bow and climbed down off the roof. He was probably back at the safe house right now, having a very controlled freak out.

But Clint knew, gut deep, as sure as he had ever known anything, that killing River Song was the wrong call.

She wasn't shooting yet. That was something. Clint walked forward cautiously. His own sidearm was in easy reach in case he needed it, but he was trying to be optimistic.

Now that he was seeing her up close, he automatically began to catalog his observations, mentally comparing them to what he had gleaned from her file. She was shorter than he'd been expecting. Her accent, as far as he could tell, wasn't strictly English; it sounded more Scottish to his ear. Not that it meant anything—accents were easily faked. But he filed it away nonetheless. She was also incredibly good at covering up weakness. There was little sign at all that a second ago she'd been letting a wall hold her up.

There were signs that she couldn't hide with sheer force of will, though. She was thinner than she ought to be, Clint noted. That would seem to suggest that whatever difficulties she was having, they extended further back than the last two days. Her eyes were darkly shadowed, and her face was pale save for an unhealthy red flush in her cheeks.

Still, her grip on her gun was rock steady.

"You know," she said, "I've heard about you. Hawkeye, isn't it? They say you never miss." She tilted her head slightly toward the arrow in the wall, but she never took her eyes off of him. "They also say that you don't play with your kills. Clearly people are wrong about one of those things."

"I didn't miss," Clint said, taking another step closer. "I hit just what I was aiming for." One more step. "Your friends from two nights ago? They have partners, and they're waiting for you up ahead."

That actually seemed to take her aback for a moment. "And what?" she said finally. "You didn't want them poaching your kill?"

Clint shook his head. "I'm not here to kill you."

The Reaper's mouth quirked up a bit at the corner.

"Please. I know what you do. Why else would you be here?"

"I know what you do, too," he said. One more step. "And like I said, I saw you the night before last. You let the kid go. You could have just killed him."

He went to take another step, but stopped when she took one back away from him.

"And you could have taken a shot at me any time now. You haven't," he added. "So, maybe we don't really know that much about each other, huh?" He grinned.

He'd been hoping to diffuse some of the tension. The Reaper was having none of it. If anything she looked even more guarded than she had before.

"You know," he went on, "I half expected you to run by now."

For some reason, that made _her_ grin.

"Never run when you're scared," she said, sounding almost as if she were reciting a lesson.

Clint raised his eyebrows.

"Are you scared?" he asked.

"I'm marked for death. A few times over, apparently. Only an idiot wouldn't be scared under those circumstances, don't you think?"

Clint didn't get a chance to answer. A new voice cut into their conversation.

"You should be scared, little girl," it said. "And you really should have left town while you had the chance."

It looked like the hit squad had gotten impatient and had come looking for their quarry.

The leader stood in the mouth of the south alley, flanked by five other men.

"Kill her," he said idly. "Her friend, too. For good measure."

The men drew weapons and began to advance. The Reaper turned her gun away from Clint and onto this new threat. Clint stepped up beside her, drawing his own gun. She saw the Reaper glance sidelong at him.

"Oh, this should be interesting," he heard her mutter.

**xxxxxxxxxxx**

Three minutes, forty-two seconds.

As River caught her breath, looking around at the six bodies scattered on the cracked asphalt, she couldn't help but wonder if Monroe's employment requirements boiled down to "big and stupid." It would explain a lot.

She shot a glance over at her accidentally acquired comrade-in-arms. He was kneeling on the ground, retrieving his knife from the chest of one of the thugs, wiping it off on the man's shirt. Without thinking, her eyes still scanning the other dark alleyways for any more surprises that might be waiting in the wings, River stepped closer and held out her hand to help him up.

Not that she trusted him, but if there was yet another wave waiting out there, she wanted the closest thing she had to an ally at this particular moment to be on his feet.

"Well, I suppose it's good to know that you can fight with something besides a bow," she said.

It was not a thank-you.

She was still keeping an eye out for more potential threats when she felt his hand clasp hers and heard him say, "I'm really sorry about this."

It took a second for the comment to register, and by then it was far too late. River frowned and was just about to ask him what the hell he was apologizing for when his grip on her hand suddenly tightened and something sharp bit against the inside of her wrist.

She jerked her hand away, staring in horror at the small dart that had been pressed under the skin. She hastily scraped it away, stumbling back, but she knew she was already in serious trouble. Whatever was in that dart was working incredibly fast. River cursed herself roundly and in multiple languages for stupidly letting her guard down. She could feel a pleasant warmth quickly working its way through her bloodstream, danger disguised as soothing comfort. Her steps were heavy and uncoordinated as she tried to put some distance between herself and Hawkeye.

"You son of a bitch," she said to the blurring image of the archer, who was back on his feet and now somehow standing right in front of her. River dully listened to the panicked part of her brain telling her to shoot him, but she couldn't quite remember where her gun had gone. Instead, she launched a sloppy punch at him.

It didn't even come close to connecting, and only served to scatter what little was left of her balance. There was an unsettling sensation, as if she were flying and falling at the same time, and River felt herself get caught against something that was warm and solid.

Then the world upended and all the lights went out.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Clint lowered the Reaper to the ground and conducted a quick search for weapons, not that he expected her to come around any time soon. When SHIELD R&D developed a knock out dart, they didn't mess around, but there was no point in taking chances. He found two knives and a set of lock picks in addition to her gun, all of which he tucked into his pack.

There was a jump drive zipped into an inner pocket of her jacket. Clint looked at it curiously for a moment before tucking it away as well. Depending on what was on it, it could be a good bargaining chip.

He also found the large patch of bandages on her right side. Clint carefully teased some of the tape free and peeled it back, wincing when he saw puffy red flesh all along the length of a clumsily stitched wound. No doubt it accounted for the fact that she felt like a furnace.

Well, they could start medical treatment back at the safe house. And, Clint thought, looking around at the bodies, the sooner they got there the better. These back streets might be deserted for the moment, but there was nothing to say that they'd stay that way. They needed to get out of here.

Clint switched his comm back on. "Aerie?"

"_**Jesus**__, Barton!"_ Coulson's voice had the excessively annoyed tone it only got when the senior agent was beyond worried, not to mention the fact that he had abandoned codenames on an open comm. _"Sit rep. What's going on?"_

Clint was reviewing his mental map of the area. "I need a pick up at Point D," he said. It was the closest, only three streets away.

"_Are you hurt?"_ Coulson asked, sounding a little more worried than annoyed this time. Ordinarily, Clint would be fine to make his way back to the safe house on his own, either over the roofs or on the streets.

But he couldn't carry the Reaper across the roofs, and carrying her the whole distance through the streets was bound to attract unwanted attention.

"No," he said. "But there were some…" He looked down at River Song again. "Complications."

"_I'm on my way, now,"_ Coulson said. _"Is the target neutralized?"_

"The target is subdued." Clint heard Coulson go very quiet on the other end of the comm. "I'll take full responsibility. You can tell the Director it was my call. I'm bringing her in."

Clint heard several colorful whispers filter over the comm and grinned at his friend's ability to turn a profane phrase. _"I'll be there in ten minutes,"_Coulson added in a more businesslike tone.

Clint retrieved his arrow from the wall (no sense in leaving a blatant clue if he didn't have to). He found the backpack that River Song had dropped and shouldered it along with his own gear, then bent down and picked her up.

After one final glance around the alley, Hawkeye disappeared into the night.

**xxxxxxxxxxx**

Coulson was not happy.

When he pulled up at Point D, he spotted a dark form already waiting in the shadows. Hawkeye stepped out into the light as he was putting the car into park and, yes, he was carrying a smaller figure in his arms. Coulson refrained from cursing, but only because they didn't have time for it right now. The foolishly optimistic part of him had half hoped that this was an elaborate practical joke on his agent's part.

He really should have known better.

Coulson jumped out of the car, leaving the engine running and opened the back door. He took the Reaper from Barton and deposited her in the back while Barton dumped his gear in the front passenger seat. Then Barton climbed into the back to monitor the prisoner while Coulson got back behind the wheel, and they were off. The entire maneuver took less than twenty seconds. No one on the street would ever be the wiser.

Once they were en route back to the safe house, Coulson pinned his agent with a stern glare, bounced off the rearview mirror.

"I trust you have a good explanation for this. That was a kill order."

Coulson would be the first to admit that Barton had had some insubordination issues when he'd first joined SHIELD. Or, as Fury had once put it, the kid had had a talent for being a colossal pain in the ass at times. But never in his career had he outright refused a kill order.

When SHIELD issued one of those, it was for a good reason, and the agent who drew the job damn well knew it.

He saw Barton glance down at River Song, curled on her side on the backseat beside him.

"Because it was the wrong call."

"You're going to have to do better than that if you want to sell this to Fury." Coulson was more than a little curious to hear his argument himself.

Barton's face took on a stubborn expression that Coulson knew all too well.

"Think about her skill set, Phil. She could be one hell of an asset for SHIELD. And I think if we approach it right, she'd take an offer. She's in serious trouble, and she knows it. I think she'd take a way out."

"Let me get this straight. Not only did you not kill her, you want to recruit her? After reading what's in her file?"

"They have her pegged wrong," Barton said. "I gave her a dozen chances to try to kill me, and she didn't take a one of them. How does that track with what her file says? Also, that psych write up claiming that she's the Antichrist? It's crap."

Well, he certainly had Coulson's attention.

"Okay," he said. "Tell me your reasoning. Why is it 'crap'?"

Barton gave a concise run down of his observations. Coulson already knew about the fight two nights ago, and yes, he'd agreed that her allowing the gang's teenage recruit to live for no reason that was advantageous to her was not the sort of behavior they'd expected. In fact, letting the boy live had been a risky move on her part. Then Barton told him what had happened in the alley, starting with his firing an arrow to keep her from walking into a trap. Coulson listened attentively even as he navigated the narrow streets.

Coulson knew Barton well. Hell, the kid was family in all but blood at this point. He knew that Barton could still be impulsive and was well capable of bucking authority. Maybe less so these days, but still. But he also knew that Barton was a professional who valued his place at SHIELD in general, and valued Coulson's good opinion in particular. The younger agent had a fundamentally good heart, but he wouldn't throw over a kill order based on nothing but a pretty face and sentiment.

"Okay," Coulson conceded, turning the car into the alley behind their safe house. "So, maybe she's not a psychopath, but Clint, she's killed two SHIELD agents. She put five more out of the field for months. That's going to be a hell of a hurdle to get over."

"Yeah, well, there were people who weren't exactly thrilled when you brought me on," Barton pointed out. "But you went to the mat to get me into SHIELD."

Granted, Hawkeye had never clashed with any of their agents prior to his recruitment, but there had still been plenty of people in the organization who had thought Coulson was crazy to bring him into the fold.

"I know." Coulson pulled the car into a hidden garage underneath their safe house. He killed the engine and turned around to look at Barton. "But how this plays out is going to boil down to her, you know. If she decides she's not going to cooperate…"

Well, it would just mean that the order had been delayed for a bit.

Barton nodded.

"Okay." Coulson opened his door. "I'll grab the gear. You're on first aid detail. I have a long phone call with the boss waiting for me."

**xxxxxxxxxxx**

SHIELD safe houses, as a rule, weren't large or elaborate affairs, and this one was no exception. In fact, it fell on the more Spartan end of things. It boasted a smallish bathroom, a slightly larger room for storing tech and equipment (Coulson was holed up in there now, talking to Fury) and a good sized common room. There was a kitchen area at one end with a bullet-proof window that faced a blank fence, a vague living room area in the middle with a sofa and a couple of chairs, and a pair of cots at the far end.

What it lacked in homey comfort, though, it made up for by being well-stocked and very secure. Two things that could not be overvalued on SHIELD assignments.

Clint dealt with patching River Song up while listening with one ear to the rise and fall of Coulson's voice in the next room, trying to judge how the conversation was going from the muffled syllables. He'd offered to make the call to Fury himself, but Coulson had just raised an eyebrow and handed him the first aid kit. It was correct protocol, of course, for Coulson to call this in, but Clint wished that he didn't have to be in that position. He knew that it wasn't just his own ass he'd put on the line by taking the Reaper alive, but Coulson's too.

He had also known when he'd done it that Coulson would ultimately back him up.

He hoped Phil wasn't regretting that now.

Clint was one of SHIELD's best operatives. That wasn't arrogance talking, it was merely an acknowledgement of fact. And Coulson was one of Fury's most trusted inner circle. If the two of them couldn't sell Fury on this, no one could.

If they couldn't? Well, Clint didn't want to think about that.

He had the Reaper laid out on his cot. She hadn't so much as twitched this whole time. She had a few bumps and bruises from the fight in the alley, but nothing serious. He swiped the scrapes on her hands and the shallow cut on her forehead out with antiseptic just to be on the safe side.

The real problem was the older wound on her side. It was heading toward septic, and there wasn't a whole lot they could do about it with just a first aid kit, even a SHIELD-issued one. Clint opted to leave it alone aside from re-disinfecting the area and putting on a new bandage. If things played out the way he hoped, she'd get proper treatment back at the SHIELD base in New York.

Frowning, Clint reached for the ear thermometer. Her temperature was high, but still a bit below being dangerous. They had oral antibiotics and aspirin, but he wasn't sure if it was worth waking her up to make her take them, or better to just let her sleep through as much as she could.

Clint gathered up the used bandages and headed for the kitchen area to throw them in the garbage. He glanced toward the equipment room door on his way, hearing Coulson's voice rise slightly on the other side.

He wondered how it was going in there.

**xxxxxxxxxxx**

She felt all wrong.

She was lying on a surface that wasn't entirely uncomfortable, but her body felt weighed down and achy. Her head pounded and she was having a hard time marshalling her thoughts into anything resembling order. Her mouth was very dry and felt like it had been packed with cotton. The word _drugs_ filtered through her awareness, accompanied by a vague rush of anger. Hawkeye and his trick dart.

As her head slowly began to clear up a bit, she became aware of the smell and sting of antiseptic, cool fingers resting on the pulse point of her neck, an uncomfortable pressure in her ear, hands probing at the painful wound on her side. Somehow she knew, without even opening her eyes, that that presence was the source of her current predicament.

A few relevant thoughts formed themselves into a strangling line. Hawkeye. Hawkeye was an assassin. He was an assassin who had taken her alive. If he had taken her alive, it couldn't possibly be for anything good.

River kept her breathing even, playing possum until she felt him move away.

She had to get the hell out of here.

**xxxxxxxxxxx**

Clint was tossing the old bandages in the trash can under the sink when he heard a faint shuffling from the living area, followed by the louder sound of a body hitting the floor.

He turned to see River Song in a heap by the cot, trying to push herself up on shaky arms. She had more or less succeeded in sitting up by the time he got back to the opposite side of the room and crouched down in front of her.

"Hey, easy. It's okay," he said, reaching out to steady her. "You're all right."

Her eyes were bleary and only half focused. Clint hoped that she understood what he was saying. Captured was one thing you never wanted to be in this business. He would know—he'd been in that position a few times himself, and not with people who wanted to do him any favors, either. He'd had pain inflicted on him in new and creative ways, as well as the tried and true ones.

But at least Clint had always known that he just had to hold on until Coulson could come to save his ass. The Reaper worked alone. No one was going to be coming to help her.

She looked up at him, and Jesus Christ but she looked young. In reality he'd guess that she was about the same age he had been when SHIELD had recruited him. He'd been nineteen when Coulson had turned up in his life one day like what had turned out to be a pretty lucky penny. But he still had a hard time imagining that he'd ever looked that young.

He smiled, trying to be reassuring. "Just take it easy, okay?"

She blinked, and in an instant her brown eyes went from confused and glassy to sharp and pissed off. Clint saw it, but he was a split second too late to dodge when she slammed her head into his.

**xxxxxxxxxxx**

_Shit. Okay, so walking is out_, River thought in the perversely short moment between getting up from the cot and landing on the floor.

She gritted her teeth against the flare of pain along her side as she pushed herself up to a sitting position. A second later a pair of hands wrapped carefully around her upper arms, helping to hold her upright, and she found herself looking into a pair of green eyes.

Oh, yes. That was him, all right.

River knew that she had limited options at present. She wasn't doing so well, here. She apparently couldn't stand, let alone run. That rather let out the possibility of fighting her way free, too. A quick mental assessment of her situation presented only one reasonable course of action.

After all, he had pulled a dirty trick with that dart. As far as River was concerned, one cheap shot deserved another.

**xxxxxxxxxxx**

Coulson and Nick Fury had seen a lot of water go under the bridge together over the years. They were colleagues and friends and bore each other a lot of mutual respect. In other words, the call that Coulson had to make to his boss from Sofia could have been a hell of a lot more unpleasant than it was.

Although, Fury's initial response of, _"He did WHAT?"_ had not been very encouraging.

So, to say that it was an intense international call was putting it mildly, but Coulson had been given an answer and the parameters he needed to go forward with this situation, and was starting to feel a little more sure of their course by the time he hung up.

That, of course, was the point at which he heard a loud yelp and a string of curses from Barton in the next room. Adrenaline kicking back up into high gear again, Coulson drew his gun and burst through the door.

He expected to find a scene of developing carnage. That just seemed to be what happened when the River Song went on the attack. Instead Coulson found Hawkeye and the Reaper both sprawled in the floor, wearing matching expressions of pain. Clint had one hand pressed against his cheekbone. Song had one pressed over her brow.

It quickly became clear that, rather than an escalating situation, this was the end of a very short (and, if Coulson were to be honest, fairly comical) fight. Coulson stood looking down at them both for a moment before holstering his sidearm. He shook his head at Clint.

"I left you alone for thirty minutes," he said, mildly.

"Yeah, well. You always said I could get into trouble in three." Clint sounded far more annoyed than truly hurt, though when he dropped his hand, Coulson could see a mark that he could tell was going to evolve into an impressive bruise.

Clint began to climb to his feet, and Coulson moved to stand over Song. The young woman was apparently hoping that looks could indeed kill if the glare she was giving him was any indication.

"River Song," he said, calmly. "My name is Agent Coulson. You've met my associate, Agent Barton.

"We're with an organization called SHIELD. And we'd like to make you an offer."

**xxxxxxxxxx**

Only in her world, River thought, could she go, in the span of an hour, from being on a hit list to being offered a job.

By the very same people who had had her on their hit list.

When Agent Coulson had appeared, River's first thought had been, _Brilliant. Two of them._ She had known that her chances of getting out of this had just dropped from near zero into the negative integers. The older agent might look like a solicitor, but he held his sidearm and moved with easy confidence, suggesting field experience.

A field agent who had been good enough to work his way up the ranks, then. And therefore not someone to trifle with.

Then he had offered her a job. Or at least the possibility of one.

River listened silently to the sales pitch. She was back on the cot, sitting cross-legged with her back resting against the wall. She had been given a bottle of water which she'd gratefully drunk half of. She'd also been given some pills which she'd palmed and slipped between the cot's frame and the thin mattress when they weren't looking, because she was not a complete idiot. Her head was mercifully clearer, though she still felt like a sack of wet laundry. Agent Coulson had pulled over a folding metal chair and sat in front of her. Agent Barton stood at his handler's shoulder, arms folded.

Agent Coulson talked about SHIELD, an agency so covert she, even with her contacts, had heard little about it, at least not up until earlier that year. He talked about working for the greater good of the world. Serving something bigger. Keeping innocent people safe. He talked about using her skills for something positive.

He made it sound attractive, she'd give him that.

"What do you say, Miss Song? Would you consider coming to work for the good guys?"

River couldn't help it. She started to laugh.

**xxxxxxxxxxx**

Clint and Coulson had done their fair share of interviews and interrogations together. Enough to refrain from showing much in the way of overt tells and reactions in front of a subject. But they still couldn't help but exchange a quick look.

River Song's laughter…well, it wasn't a pleasant thing. It was nearly silent, suggested mainly by an erratic jerk of her shoulders and a twisted smile. Humor didn't come anywhere within fifty miles of it.

"Is something funny, Miss Song?" Coulson asked.

She looked up at them, her smile (if it could really be called that) never faltering. If she had looked impossibly young before, Clint thought, now, at least for a moment, she looked incredibly old.

"Yes"' she replied. "You are."

Coulson raised his eyebrows, but kept quiet, waiting for her to go on.

"You talk about 'good guys' and 'bad guys' as if there's really any such thing," she said after a moment. "The people that you operate against? Do you really think they see you as anything but the monster in the dark? You send him to kill me," she nodded at Clint, "and it's right and noble because you're 'the good guys.' I do the same thing and I'm dangerous and need to be put down. None of it means anything. Not really. It's just people twisting belief to suit them."

"That's an interesting insight," Coulson said. Clint could tell that Phil was already taking internal notes for the psych file. "We'd like the chance to prove you wrong about that. Perhaps you could tell us what it is that _you_ believe in."

Coulson's gaze held steady, but after a moment River's slid to the side.

"I don't," she said, voice suddenly gone hard.

"Don't what?"

"Believe." She said the word as if it left a bad taste in her mouth. "And I don't care about having a side. I do better alone."

Coulson straightened up slightly. Clint had a pretty good idea what his friend was thinking.

River Song might not believe in anything—or profess not to. But it was pretty clear that she had believed in something once. Believed in it whole-heartedly, probably. And she had had that rug yanked out from under her. Hard.

Coulson leaned forward again, elbows resting on his knees.

"Except that you're not doing so well on your own these days, now are you?" Coulson pointed out. He smiled slightly in the face of the look _that_comment garnered him. "Working strictly solo—I know it sounds good on paper. No attachments, no one to answer to. But I'm willing to bet that you know firsthand exactly how many enemies it can make you. It's a simple fact that freelancers in your line of work have a short life expectancy. In your case, we think that would be a waste of a lot of talent that could be used for better things.

"If you work for us, you'll have protection. Support. You might even be able to sleep through the night, which, frankly, it looks like you haven't been able to do for a while." Coulson straightened back up. "And if it truly doesn't matter to you who you work for or what they believe in, then what's to stop you from working for us?"

**xxxxxxxxxxx**

He made it sound so reasonable. And good. Too good to be true, even, which told River that she would be better off telling him to put a bullet between her eyes and get it over with, because _too good to be true_ just didn't happen.

But she didn't. Because even after everything, in spite of everything, she wasn't really in a hurry to die.

She looked up in surprise when the end of the cot dipped a bit as Agent Barton took a seat. She hadn't expected him to get within striking distance of her for a while, at least not without a drawn gun. Certainly not in a manner that managed to look almost chummy.

"You know," he said, "Coulson's the one who brought me into SHIELD. About six years ago, now. I remember when he showed up. I remember thinking, _Who is this yahoo and what the hell is he playing at? He can't be for real_." River saw Agent Coulson raise an eyebrow with something that looked like long-suffering tolerance. "But I decided to risk it, and I've never regretted it. You can trust him. You can trust both of us. Just give us a chance. We've done right by you so far, haven't we?"

The crazy thing was, River realized, even taking into account kill orders and arrows and drugged darts, they had. They'd had more than ample time and opportunity to kill her, or worse. They hadn't. She was still alive. She hadn't been beaten or tortured or otherwise harmed. She hadn't even really been threatened.

Maybe it was all a set up. Maybe they were just softening her up for the modern spy version of the Spanish Inquisition, and she'd wind up wishing she'd died quick and clean in that alley. That was more "maybe" than her mind could process through right now, though.

She was just so damn tired.

When River finally answered, it was so quiet that it was almost hard to hear.

"All right."

She really didn't know what to make of the smile Agent Barton gave her in response. Agent Coulson's reaction was a bit more subdued, but he looked satisfied if not pleased. He checked his watch as he stood up.

"The extraction team is meeting us at the airfield in ninety minutes," he said to Barton. "Let's get this packed in so we can head home."

Ninety minutes. Not a very long time. River wondered how this interview would have ended if she'd taken longer to make up her mind.

She didn't bother to ask where "home" was. She told herself that she didn't care, not really. She would give this a chance, at least for a while. After that? Well, it wasn't like she'd never disappeared before.

She stayed put on her cot while the two agents efficiently broke down and packed up the safe house. With the future mapped out in front of her, at least for a little ways, River allowed herself to drift.

**xxxxxxxxxxx**

She dreamed, just like everyone else.

All too often, they weren't pleasant dreams. She had done and seen and been involved in too many dark things for it to be otherwise. It was not uncommon to wake up in a haze of blood and fire and fear. Hearing the retort of gunshots and screams. Seeing faces of the dead and dying and wondering if she might be joining them soon. River had long ago come to terms with the fact that her nights would be haunted as often as not.

They weren't all bad, though. Some nights brought happier memories. A tiny bedroom with faded blue paint and an off-kilter window that let in cold drafts. A cheerful fire in a hearth that took up almost an entire wall. Running in a brisk wind that carried with it the smell and sound of the sea. Songs with uncertain tunes, jokes half-forgotten, and old beloved faces that had begun to blur a bit with time.

The happy dreams were just as haunting as the nightmares.

And then there were the dreams about _him._

They were the worst ones. Fortunately, they didn't occur often. The Doctor usually only turned up in her dreams when she felt like her world had well and truly been tipped onto its edge. That probably contributed to why she hated them so much.

It wasn't really him, of course. For all the wonders the Doctor could perform, walking into a person's dreams wasn't one of them. River knew it was just her subconscious conjuring up the thing that disconcerted her more than anything in the universe to drive home exactly how pear-shaped her situation had gotten.

He was watching her now. Leaning up against the blue door of the TARDIS, arms folded, bow tie adjusted _just so._

"You know, this may really be for the best," he said. "It's not good to be alone. It's better to have companions."

"Being alone keeps things simpler," River said.

"Simpler doesn't mean better," he replied, pushing himself off the door and walking toward her. "We need complications. We need them to check us at times. We go too far into the shadows when we're alone. Your record the last few years is proof enough of that."

"We?" River took a step toward him, fists clenching. "Speak for yourself, Doctor. I'm nothing like you."

He just smiled.

"Oh, but you are like me. At least a little bit. If you weren't you wouldn't be here at all, now would you? You aren't like me and yet you are. See? Complicated. Complications arise even in the simplest scenarios. You can't run away from them." The Doctor looked down at her with an expression of compassion that River could never decide if she craved or hated. "Can you honestly tell me that you've been happy all alone? Can you honestly tell me that you, of all people, couldn't have fought your way out of this somehow? Maybe you wanted to get caught, somewhere not so deep down."

River shook with a mixture of fear and anger for a moment before turning her back on him.

"Go away. I don't want you here."

She couldn't keep her walls up against both her dreams and waking life. Not right now.

River thought she heard a faint sigh behind her.

"I'll see you in the future, River."

River squeezed her eyes shut.

He always made the same promise. Even though it was just a dream, she knew that he'd make good on it one day.

She had no idea what she was going to do when that happened.

**xxxxxxxxxxx**

Clint kept one eye on River Song as he went back and forth through the safe house, watching her slump further and further to the left. When it became apparent that she'd been sucked under again, he paused and eased her down onto her side, shaking his head when, even in sleep, her face seemed to wrinkle up with a look of suspicion.

"We're doing the right thing here, aren't we?" he said to Coulson, who was coming out of the tech room carrying the communications hub.

For a second it looked like Coulson was calculating the force and angle needed to lob the piece of equipment at Clint's head.

"You're asking this _now_?" the senior agent asked.

"No, I mean…" Clint made an impatient face. "I know we're doing the right thing by not killing her. It's just that…"

That what? They were saving her life. They were doing it by taking advantage of the fact that she was sick and drugged and backed into a corner with nowhere to go and no other good choice. Such was the thin grey line of moral ambiguity that they were, by now, very well used to walking.

Coulson seemed to read his mind.

"Just keep remembering what the alternative was," he said.

"Yeah. I know." Clint smiled ruefully. "It should be interesting to see what happens once she's bounced back."

"'Interesting' would be one word for it," Coulson replied, snapping closed the case that contained their comm equipment. "She doesn't trust us, you know."

"To be fair, I didn't trust you at first, and you had just been sent to recruit me, not kill me."

"Point." Coulson tiredly rubbed the back of his neck. "Just bear in mind, you're going to get to help me deal with 'interesting.'"

Clint glanced down at Song again.

"I never figured otherwise."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Between exhaustion, the fever, and a heavy dose of drugs, River would only ever have vague memories of the time between her impromptu recruitment interview in the SHIELD safe house and coming fully back to herself in an infirmary a day and a half later.

She knew she hadn't been unconscious the whole time. When she concentrated, she was able to pull up some memories of the last thirty-odd hours, beyond her dream of the Doctor. River shuddered slightly at that memory and told herself that there were no such things as bad omens.

She remembered a state-of-the-art jet in a rundown airfield outside of the city, and some crewmen who had looked guardedly surprised at her presence with Agents Barton and Coulson. She had insisted on walking aboard under her own steam, even though her legs had still been wobbling dangerously. They had let her, but Agent Barton had kept one arm wrapped around her shoulders to help her along. River had desperately wanted to tell him to piss off, but she'd had just enough common sense left to know that without help she'd likely fall on her ass in front of these people, and that would have been even worse than needing help walking.

River had found herself in a seat on the jet, staring dumbly at the straps and belts, knowing that she was probably meant to do something with them. Just what that was had managed to escape her, though, so she had sat there until Agent Barton had finally leaned down and buckled her in like a little kid.

"Try to get some sleep," he had said. "It's a long flight."

Her memories from when they were airborne were little more than disjointed scraps, mostly due, she'd learn later, to her fever spiking in an inconvenient manner halfway across the Atlantic. Indistinct voices, hands on her forehead, that damned thermometer. Agent Barton shaking her awake what felt like every other minute to make her take a drink or two from a bottle of water. Agent Coulson talking to her once they were on the ground.

That was the part she remembered the most clearly. Agent Coulson, River had determined, had the talent of making people sit up and pay attention when they'd really just as soon curl up under a rock and die.

"Here's what's going to happen," she remembered his saying. He'd been leaning in close enough that all she could see was his face, speaking calmly and clearly, no doubt trying to make sure that what he said sank in. "You're going to be placed under restraint and taken under guard to Medical for treatment. Do _not_ put up any resistance. Do you understand? Agent Barton and I are going to meet with our Director, and as soon as you're doing a little better, he's going to want to talk to you. In the meantime, just cooperate with the medical staff. So long as you don't give anyone a reason, no one is going to hurt you. Nod if you understand what I'm saying to you, Song."

River had nodded dutifully, because it seemed as if it was quite important to him. She still hadn't really believed him when he said she wouldn't be harmed, but she decided to humor him by not disagreeing. She was too tired to argue anyway.

Still, Agent Coulson had been as good as his word, at least thus far.

River woke up mid-morning feeling wrung out, but still better than she had in a while. She was lying in a bed with rails, the quiet around her was softened by the faint hums and beeps of equipment and monitors, and there was the dull pinch of an IV in her arm. Her inner clock and calendar and compass, which were pretty reliable in telling her where she was in time and space, told her that it was Thursday, and if she had to hazard a guess she'd say she was somewhere in the vicinity of New York City.

_Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses._ Though it looked like breathing free was going to take a bit longer. Looking around from the bed, River could tell that the small infirmary room was well secured. No window, save for the one in the door (a door outfitted with a keypad and card reader). She was also more than willing to bet that it was under surveillance since, a few minutes after she began to stir, a doctor appeared, escorted by a poker-faced man in a black uniform who was carrying a very large gun.

The guard took up position just inside the door while the doctor, a tiny woman in her forties who introduced herself as Dr. Levine, checked her over. If the doctor was in any way apprehensive of her patient, she showed no sign, and in fact looked a bit impatient over having armed back-up in the room. Dr. Levine pronounced River to be healing up nicely, and produced a plastic spoon and two sealed cups of Jello from the pockets of her coat. While River slowly dug into the first one, Dr. Levine unlocked a cabinet in the corner and rummaged a bit, emerging with a stack of what looked like SHIELD issued gym clothes. She laid them on the foot of River's bed and told her that if she felt up to it she could shower in the small adjacent bathroom.

So, all in all, she was feeling considerably more human when Agent Barton tapped on the window and let himself into the room a couple of hours later.

**xxxxxxxxxxx**

"You look better," Clint said.

River Song had been pacing her infirmary room when he'd arrived, not really restlessly, but more like a person who was adjusting to getting her feet back under her again. Her hair was damp and tied up into a bun and she'd been given a SHIELD sweat suit to wear.

He had to fight down a small smile at the purple knot on her forehead, even though his own black eye from where she'd clocked him still twinged uncomfortably. _Matched set_, he thought wryly.

"I feel better," she replied. The look she gave him had been downgraded to moderately wary compared to what it had been in Bulgaria. Even that seemed to lighten a bit when he held out his hand and she saw what was hanging from it.

Security had gone over River's backpack with a fine-toothed comb, not to mention three separate scanners. It had been relieved of weapons and anything that might be a potential weapon, not to mention several masterfully done fake IDs that had been in her wallet. The rest, Clint had been given clearance to give back to her. It wasn't much. Some extra clothes, the usual toiletries, a notebook, two paperbacks, one in English and one in Italian. If she had any items of sentimental value, it looked as if she didn't carry them on her person. Still, it meant that she wasn't starting over at SHIELD with nothing but the clothes on her back.

"Thanks," she said, taking the pack from him. "I wasn't expecting to see that again."

She laid it on the bed behind her, but Clint noticed that she let her hand rest on it for a few seconds as if anchoring herself.

"No problem," he said. He folded his arms and rocked back on his heels a bit. "The doctor says you're going to be as good as new in a few days."

"That's what she tells me." River replied.

Clint had been surprised when he'd gotten the call from Dr. Levine this morning. Song had given them a couple of scares on their way home from Bulgaria. He honestly hadn't expected her to be up and about anywhere near this soon.

Not only was she up and about, she was already on her game.

"What's with the accent?" he asked, curiously.

Song's speech had gone as flat as a Midwestern newscaster's since the last time he'd heard her talk.

She shrugged slightly. "No sense in standing out any more than I have to."

He raised his eyebrows. "Are you actually Scottish?"

For some reason, the question caused her to frown and look away. "I'm not really much of anything," she said.

A second later she looked back, shoulders straightened, arms folded.

"So. What happens now?" Song asked, sounding much more businesslike.

"Feel up to a walk?" Clint asked. When she gave him a questioning look, he grinned. "Standard procedure. All new SHIELD recruits get the grand tour."

**xxxxxxxxxxx**

River wasn't sure how much credence to give Barton's "new recruit" comment.

Yes, they had asked her to join SHIELD, but she knew that her verbal agreement with Barton and Coulson, made under duress, was not what one would call a binding contract. There was a Director, and a Council of some sort that had some sway over her fate. River wasn't ready to consider herself out of the woods yet.

Possibly "new recruit" was as hyperbolic as "grand tour." It was more of a meandering walk from the Medical building to the main Administration Center. That was fine with River, really. She was still tired and the newly debrided wound on her side ached. It felt good to not be locked up, though, and Agent Barton set a slow pace. He did point out some areas of interest along their way; the PX, a corner of a large building that he said was an indoor training facility, a barracks, and, off in the distance, some hangers.

River took in the sights silently. The SHIELD facility looked and felt like every other military base she'd ever been on and there was a security in the rhythm of it. There were people moving about individually and in groups. Some were casually strolling, some moved in formation. There were people in suits and people in gym kits like Dr. Levine had given her to wear. There were people in combat gear and black paramilitary type uniforms like Agent Barton's. The entire place hummed with purpose and efficiency.

That, too, was more comforting than River liked to admit.

_God, but you're getting sentimental in your old age,_ she thought.

The Administration Center had an impressive foyer with the SHIELD seal laid out in marble in the center of the floor in front of a freestanding wall dedicated to the organization's founders. Five of them, though River noticed that only three of them had plaques bearing actual names. The two remaining spots, side-by-side, were marked only by blank stars and a small plaque apiece with what must have been the code names of the shadowy figures. "Hope" and "Aegis." SHIELD took its covert side very seriously at all levels, it seemed.

Agent Barton led the way down a corridor off to the left. River didn't ask where they were going. Within moments, the smell made it quite apparent.

"Dr. Levine says that you're up to some real food," Barton said, leading her into the mess hall. "Steer clear of the stuff they call beef stroganoff, but most everything else is at least decent."

If SHIELD felt like any other base, the mess hall felt like every other mess hall, military or not, that River had ever been in. Large and high ceilinged, voices and the clinking of cutlery echoing in the rafters, tables set up in neat rows. River followed Barton through the line, picking up the driest-looking sandwich she saw (no sense in asking too much of her stomach right now) and a small cup of soup. She also found, happily, that the drinks station offered something that was a step up from lukewarm water and Lipton teabags alongside the coffee.

She may have adjusted her accent to suit this place, but there were some areas where she'd rather not compromise.

Barton waited patiently while she made her tea, and then nodded at a set of doors at the end of the mess hall.

"Come on," he said. "We're meeting Coulson in one of the briefing rooms."

Agent Coulson had a file and a legal pad laid out alongside his own lunch tray. He smiled pleasantly at River as she took the seat across from him. Barton sat between them at the head of the table.

"I thought we could talk over lunch," Coulson said. "I was hoping you could fill in a few blanks for us. Our file on you is fairly thin."

River smiled a bit. For any covert operative those words were high praise, especially coming from another covert operative.

"What do you want to know?" she asked, picking up her mug of tea.

"I thought we could start with some basic background. For starters," Coulson flipped open the file and took the lid off his pen, "is River Song your real name?"

"Yes," she replied. The agent didn't entirely manage to hide a skeptical look. River smiled a bit and shrugged. "It's the name that was given to me. No accounting for what people will decide to call their kids, is there?"

Coulson made a notation on his pad and moved on.

"How old are you?"

River hated these questions. The so-called "easy questions." Hated that she had to think and hedge around what other people could disclose without even thinking.

"Seventy-three," she replied, shortly.

The look the senior agent gave her said it all. She could never tell the truth, even if she'd wanted to, because the truth was too outlandish to ever be believed. River sighed.

"Eighteen," she said.

In its way, it was the truth, too. She could tell the age of her physical body the same way she could tell what day it was, or roughly where on a map she was situated.

"You know, Miss Song," Agent Coulson said as he wrote, "we are trying to help you here. Your cooperation will make this easier on all of us."

Coulson let the silence drag out for a minute or so. He was good at playing chicken, River would give him that. River held his gaze and complacently sipped her tea until the toe of a boot lightly kicked her calf under the table and she shot an indignant look at Agent Barton.

River couldn't decide if Barton was there to protect his handler, if he was part of the interrogation, if he was along for the ride as a spectator, or if he just planned to be a pain in her ass during this little question and answer session. He just raised his eyebrows and tipped his head slightly in Agent Coulson's direction as if to say, _Come on, now._

River took a deep breath. They wanted some answers? Fine.

"I know that my birthday is the fourth of June," she said. "I was born at a place called Demon's Run, but I couldn't even begin to tell you where that is. I know that my mother's name was Amelia, but everyone called her Amy. She was Scottish. She was very pretty, and she had bright red hair. My father's name was Rory. He was English and he worked as a nurse. "

Let them make of that what they would. River had never anticipated being in a position like this, had never given thought to concocting a cover story for this situation. It wasn't as if the truth would get them anywhere.

Agent Coulson was taking it all down as she talked in surprisingly messy handwriting.

"And where are they now?" he asked.

"I have no idea."

He raised his eyebrows a bit. "Are they living?"

"So far as I know. I've never heard otherwise."

"When's the last time you saw them?" Coulson asked.

"I was about a month old."

The agent actually laid down his pen. "Then how do you know about them?"

"I was told about them."

"By whom?"

"Is my infancy really relevant?" River asked. A bit of Scots had snuck back into her voice to go along with the tinge of frustration. "I was under the impression that I was being considered for a job as an operative, not enrolling in kindergarten."

Agent Barton cleared his throat slightly. "About that," he said. "How did you wind up in this line of work? We know you've been at this a few years now, at least."

It was not exactly an easy question, but still easier than giving her biography.

"I was on my own at thirteen," River said. "A girl has to do something to take care of herself."

After a moment, Agent Coulson nodded and turn to a new sheet on his legal pad.

"All right," he said. "Why don't we move on to skills sets?"

River found herself unexpectedly relaxing a bit as the conversation progressed. This was more certain ground for her, though—what she could do as opposed to who she was. Maybe if they were serious about giving her an opportunity to start over here, they'd allow her to leave the past in the past as much as possible.

That was all she'd really wanted for a very long time.

**xxxxxxxxxxx**

An hour and a half into their interview, Agent Coulson's phone rang. He laid his pen down, pulled out his cell, and looked at the screen. He nodded as if he'd seen exactly what he'd been expecting, gathered up his now half-full legal pad and River's file and stood.

"Director Fury is ready to see us," he said. "Time to meet your new boss, Miss Song."

Director Fury was a surprise. River had imagined an older version of Agent Coulson, or a hard-bitten, ex-military type. Instead, she found herself facing an imposing, dramatically black-clad figure with an eye patch. He wouldn't have looked out of place at the helm of a pirate ship. Full of vampires.

"River Song," he said, pinning his good eye on the small figure standing between Agents Coulson and Barton. "The Reaper in the flesh. Quite a reputation you have, young lady."

The corner of River's mouth turned up slightly. "Don't look at me. I didn't pick the name."

"No, but I'd say you've more than earned it," Fury replied. He stepped (or, more aptly, loomed) a little closer. "And now you want to work for SHIELD."

Seven smart retorts ran through River's head in rapid succession before she was able to put a stranglehold on her more sarcastic impulses.

"Yes, sir," she said instead.

"Miss Song, you are aware that you've killed SHIELD agents in the field? While that might not be general knowledge in the organization, there are going to be people who will know. People that you may have to work alongside. People who aren't going to like you very much. And I've spent a collective six hours convincing certain members of the Council that we wouldn't all be better off if I delivered your head to them in a box."

River did her best not to shift.

"To the best of my knowledge, Agents Coulson and Barton are the only agents of your organization I've ever met."

"Nairobi, about eight months back. Research facility. Ring any bells?"

River nodded. "I remember."

God, had that job ever gone to hell in a hand basket.

"And?" Director Fury crossed his arms. It was clear that he wanted more than that, and that there was a lot riding on how River answered.

River considered him for a moment before speaking.

"I did my job. They did theirs. I just happened to do mine better that day."

It was all that she could say. She couldn't feign regret or remorse for doing what she had been hired to do—it would have just rung hollow anyway. She had gone in to do a job. They had tried to take her down, she had tried to take them down, and she had won. That was just how their world worked.

It might not have been a good answer, but it seemed enough for Director Fury.

"You are on probation until I say otherwise," he said, hands clasped behind his back, looking directly down at her. "You'll report to Agent Coulson. If he tells you to jump off of a building wearing a tutu, that's what you'll do. You'll submit to all SHIELD evaluations—physical, psychological, medical, educational, the works. You'll adhere to a training schedule that will be set up by Agent Coulson and will commence as soon as you are cleared by Medical. You will not leave the base, and for the foreseeable future you will be restricted to your quarters between 2200 and 0500 hours unless you have an approved escort."

He took one step closer so that she had to tilt her head back to keep looking him in the eye.

"You will not cause trouble," he added. "If I, at any point, think that you are a danger to the people on this base, I will take you out behind the gun range and shoot you myself. If you try to run, I will personally hunt you down, cap your knees, and _then_ take you out behind the gun range and shoot you. Do I make myself clear?"

_If ever a man were aptly named,_ River thought.

"Very. Sir."

It wasn't a promise that she wouldn't try if circumstances dictated, but she couldn't say she didn't know the consequences.

"Good. I'll leave you in the capable hands of Agents Coulson and Barton. Dismissed."

The look he directed to the two men also couldn't have been more clear. _You brought her home. You get to be responsible for her._

They filed out of Director Fury's office in silence, Coulson leading the way back toward Medical. No one said anything until they were two halls away. Barton, predictably, was the one to break the silence.

"He grows on you after a while," the archer said cheerfully.

River saw Agent Coulson glance back in surprise when she couldn't quite hold back a snort of honest laughter.

**xxxxxxxxxxx**

Dr. Levine wanted to keep Song in Medical for at least one more night, and Clint had gone into the city for some well-deserved R&R. With his (now) two charges thus squared away, Coulson knocked on Fury's office door at precisely seven o'clock that evening.

"Come in," the Director's muffled voice called.

Fury was in his chair, feet up on the desk, head tipped back, a cup of coffee resting on his stomach between his clasped hands, looking like all he wanted in the world was a long nap.

"Hey, Boss," Coulson said, taking the chair on the other side of the desk. A second cup of coffee was already waiting.

Fury cracked his good eye open.

"So, do you think I put the fear of God into her?" he asked.

"Enough," Coulson said with a slight smile. "How did it go with the Council?"

"About as well as you'd expect." Fury took his feet down from the desk. "But that's all right. They'll find something new to scream about soon enough." He reached down and brought up a box that smelled promisingly of fried dough and sugar and set it in the middle of the desk. "You do know that if anyone but you and Barton had pulled a stunt like this…"

Coulson was already nodding. "I know, and I appreciate your going to bat for us . And for her." He flipped open the box lid and selected a jelly donut, using a napkin as an improvised plate. "Trust me, I wasn't happy at first, but I think Barton really made the right call on this one. If she's a psychopath, she hides it incredibly well. And if half of her skills set pans out, she'll more than earn her keep."

Fury chuckled. "A gifted loose cannon. Why do I feel like we've been down this road before?"

"And Barton's turned out to be our best," Coulson pointed out.

"He has," Fury agreed. "Here's hoping lightning strikes twice." The Director helped himself to a sprinkled donut. "Did the techs get anything off of that jump drive?"

Coulson frowned and shook his head. "Plans for a sewage treatment plant. Nothing even remotely sensitive as far as we can tell unless there's something else hiding behind an encryption. The computer techs are checking into that now. Song says that that's what she was hired to retrieve. No idea why her client wanted them, though."

And Song had apparently known better than to ask. Most people weren't interested in an inquisitive gun-for-hire.

"So, how much of her background checks out?" Fury asked.

Phil washed down a bite of donut with his coffee and wiped his fingers on another napkin before opening the file that he'd brought with him. It was considerably thicker than it had been before, boasting several new sheets of typed notes.

"Practically none of it," he admitted. "I haven't had a chance to do a really in-depth search yet, but there's no record of a River Song anywhere, let alone of her being born on June 4, 1987. I also haven't found a reference to any place known as Demon's Run.

"She was closed-mouthed on the subject of a home town, but I think we can safely bet on Great Britain. I couldn't find any match on the parents, though without last names to go with them, I wasn't expecting much. I took a stab at marriage records, but nothing turned up an Amelia and Rory. Of course, there's nothing to say that her parents were married. She claims that she was separated from them when she was a month old. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say she was given up for adoption, but to whom is currently a mystery. She's not keen on talking about whoever it was who raised her."

"Abusive situation?" Fury asked. "Or do you think we're looking at a program of some kind?"

"I suppose either is a possibility. We have plenty of time to work on it. Her psych evaluations should shed some light there. Her first one is scheduled for tomorrow."

"And then there's the possibility that the whole story is a complete fabrication," Fury pointed out.

"Maybe," Coulson replied. "But I'm not sure that she would have created information just to have something to volunteer. It doesn't seem to be her way. And if she was going to invent something, I can't help but think she would have invented something that would deflect questions instead of create more of them."

He flipped a few pages in the file and pulled out the newest photo—the one that was actually the oldest. A young River Song in a school uniform, captured on a grainy security camera.

"She said that she'd been on her own since she was thirteen. Now that we have her birth date, we know that she's not quite fourteen here. I have a couple of the analysts trying to see if they can find a match on the uniform. That might give us a lead. I also have a contact in London who's looking into any records of runaways matching her description. And, just on the off chance, any kidnappings of infant girls in 1987.

"But basically," Coulson added, closing the file, "as far as I can tell right now, there's no official record anywhere of a River Song. No birth certificate, no passport, no school records, nothing. Doing her paperwork and official documentation is going to be an adventure. We're probably going to have to ask Legal to get creative."

Fury nodded, wiping his mouth with a napkin. "Well, whatever you come up with, run it by me, and I'll sign off on it."

Coulson grinned a bit. "Then you're figuring on keeping her?"

Fury glared. "Unless she does something to truly fuck this up? Yes, I'm planning on keeping her. I didn't spend all day yesterday in video conference with the Council just to tell her 'thanks, but no thanks.' So make sure she doesn't, Phil."

Coulson nodded. "Will do, Boss."

They had gone to Sofia to carry out a kill order. They had come home with an eighteen-year-old girl with no official past, a deadly set of skills, and who had enemies both inside and outside of SHIELD. She had quite possibly not acknowledged any sort of authority since she was thirteen years old. And he was pretty certain she didn't trust him or Clint any further than she could pick them up and throw them.

He didn't even know for a certain fact that she couldn't pick either one of them and throw them.

Coulson suddenly felt that he had been understating his case when he'd said that this was going to be interesting.

_The End_


End file.
